~ Andrea's biting words ~

A personal challenge: increasing productivity

I’m so good at it! I believe there aren’t many others capable of procrastinating as easily as I do. And every time with a different excuse… which I tell myself and in which I actually believe in. And the most incredible thing is that I do all of this without even realising it.

I have been trying multiple methods in order to increase my productivity, but as you may easily imagine, there is not much that you can do, unless you don’t decide that to do what you have to do.

Still I may share some of the things that work for me, maybe they could work for you too.

Involve other people in what you would like to do: for example, if you have to study something, set an appointment with a colleague of yours in order to repeat together what you have learned. This appointment should have the same effect of a small exam, so that you feel like you have to get prepared;

For the period of time that you have to prepare alone, don’t stay home. There are too many distractions. Go where there other people learning, working. Like a library. Keep changing places: once the library gets too comfortable, change for another one. You should try to have the “new place” effect every now, in order to avoid routine.

While learning, try to give yourself a finite amount of time, were you will only learn/work. Any side thought which is keeping you from focusing? Write it on a piece of paper and leave it there: you will have time for that after. How can you choose how long you should concentrating on your work? Start small and when you get better make longer periods. Next time I’ll try with a 20 minutes shot.

Have decent amount of sleep, avoid going late to bed. Best is going to bed around 22.30 (I never manage to, but I know that when I do manage, I really feel better the day after). And if you manage to do it over a longer time period you will gain health too.

When you take pauses avoid all the addicting activities like watching youtube videos, tv, playing computer games, surfing the web. What I’m trying right now is to play some music. Maybe some physical activity could be great too. If you manage to avoid getting involved into addictive activities the chances that you start learning again after the pause, are higher.

I have decided, as a measure to defeat my procrastination habit, to write about it. Share your adventure with others in the good days and in the bad days.

One last trick that I have thought I should try, which I haven’t tried yet though, is, if you really don’t manage to stay away from those addictive activities, then measure the time you dedicate to them. And write it down on your diary or blog. I believe that in the long run, it will help you motivate yourself in reducing the time dedicated to being addicted and devoting in being yourself and making good use of the capabilities that were given to you.

The subject of this post is very personal, meaning that each person has a different way to deal with this kind of issue and sadly, there is no recipe working for each of us. You have to test, proceed by trial and error and with some effort you will manage to find the way that makes you increase your productivity and finally reach the goals that you wanted to.

As I mentioned before I have decided to write about it, because maybe it will give me more motivation in doing the things I have to do and at the same time, I hope to reach out to someone else with the same issue. Because the one thing that I have noticed is that people don’t talk much about this issues, probably because it is not interesting. But… hey, do you imagine how much you could achieve if you were going to spend the time you spend watching youtube videos, learning? Or doing sports? Or how many interesting stories you would hear by talking to random people in a bar?

If you feel like, just add your thoughts and advices about increasing your productivity. Right now I’m wishing it was already morning in order to go to work and have the chance to defeat my procrastination habit, at least for a day! I’ll come back to you and we shall see how it goes!